Sammy Yatim Shooting

[Peepers]

Sammy will be glorified as some bright kid with a future dashed, when he was likely a worthless gang-banger, but that's irrelevant.

I don't think he was a gang-banger at all. He had just graduated from a private Catholic School which tells me that he came from a good family that had high expectations for him. Of course like many teenagers it would not surprise me if he experimented with drugs. He may have been on drugs last night or suffering from a mental illness. For sure he was not in a normal state of mind.

 

[ketan]

The truth is, there are some people the world is better off without. One less knife-weilding nutjob with a death wish riding a streetcar I take regularly.

It's really sad to hear people say stuff like this.

 

[freshcutgrass]

I think what's offensive to many people at this point in time is how little effort was put into ending this situation peacefully and without death;

What's offensive to some, is pretending the police shot an innocent "victim".

You're right, this could have ended without death...Sammy could have dropped that knife.

 

[doady]

Imagine if this kid was white, no one would assume that he was a "worthless gang-banger".

What's offensive to some, is pretending the police shot an innocent "victim".

You're right, this could have ended without death...Sammy could have dropped that knife.

So someone not being "innocent" makes it okay for them to get shot and killed by police. That's probably the dumbest thing I've read on this site.

 

[ketan]

You're right, this could have ended without death...Sammy could have dropped that knife.

Put it this way: as a parent, I am not okay with how "efficiently" the situation was handled by the police.

 

[ketan]

This is vaguely relevant, btw...

Dr. Easy (A Shynola Film - 2013) http://www.created-to-help-you.com/dr

 

[doady]

Put it this way: as a parent, I am not okay with how "efficiently" the situation was handled by the police.

Imagine if the police dealt with every situation just as "efficiently" as they did here. That would be awesome, because the police don't deal with "innocent" people anyways. They deal only the criminals and the troublemakers and the mentally ill and all the other rifraff. Just let the police shoot them all and kill them all on sight. Stephen Harper won't have to build all those new prisons for unreported crimes anymore.

 

[dt_toronto_geek]

But that is a distinct risk in such volatile situations. I find avoiding being killed by police a rather easy task.

No...the bad guy is going into the ground. Whether or not cops used the best judgement or followed proper protocols or not doesn't make them the bad guy.

The truth is, there are some people the world is better off without. One less knife-weilding nutjob with a death wish riding a streetcar I take regularly.

This isn't about you riding a streetcar, it's about a troubled young man who had a rogue cop's chamber unloaded into his chest.

What's offensive to some, is pretending the police shot an innocent "victim".

You're right, this could have ended without death...Sammy could have dropped that knife.

Your comments stun and offend me, the Toronto Sun has more compassion than you do. Consider joining the civilized human race someday.

 

[typezed]

It must be comforting to have such a simple notion of good and bad. Makes TV shows and trash movies easier to understand.

If there was a way to determine the thoughts of the shooter, and it could be shown that he thought anything like "I'm a good guy and this is a bad guy, and there are some people the world is better off without", then he should be looking at jail time for murder. We give these people guns, a lot of authority over others, enhanced social status and pretty decent material lives. Anyone who starkly believes that they're ridding the streets of bad people shouldn't be in the job. That the officer appears to have aggressively threatened the kid with being shot seconds before pulling the trigger, and that he stopped and then continued to shoot the boy six times when he was laying on the floor seem aggravating factors that point to an officer operating in malice or emotion rather than any notion of public safety or justice. If we have a few less people on the streets acting out in violent manner, but to get there we have cops abusing their authority, we haven't made society better.

Holding the police responsible doesn't mean that one views the dead boy as "innocent" or a "good guy". Dumb kid did a very stupid thing, And if someone had given him the time - since it seems no one was at threat of injury at that moment - to be talked into custody, he probably should have screwed his life for a very long time. Seems like nonsense to me for activists to be glorifying someone who instigated the tragedy by pulling a knife on transit and taunting police. But cops can't just open fire on people - especially because "some people the world is better off without" - when there appear to be reasonable alternatives.

 

[JayBeeGooner]

What's offensive to some, is pretending the police shot an innocent "victim".

You're right, this could have ended without death...Sammy could have dropped that knife.

Your black and white world sucks.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

freshcutgrass:

Not being an innocent victim doesn't equate to the rightness of individual being killed. We got tasers for a reason - and it certainly wasn't for zapping them after being shot.

AoD

 

[Adjei]

Regardless of how many times he was hit, none of them were instantly fatal, as it is 37 seconds after the ninth shot is fired, and they are still ordering him to drop the knife. In fact, they can be heard ordering him to drop the knife as they are actually tazering him.

Obviously he was down, but not out, but it allowed them to get closer to tazer him. Whether the tazering allowed them to actually disarm him, or he had succumbed to his wounds is unknown.




First of all, any gunshot wound can be fatal or not fatal...you can't tell ahead of time. LOL

Secondly, they don't shoot to kill, they shoot to make sure you are no longer a threat. How many shots it takes is irrelevant. If they wanted to kill him, they would have continued shooting him, rather than tazer him. They don't have time to make split second medical evaluations. He's either dead/unconscious...or he's not. I doubt they were tazering a corpse and yelling at him to drop his weapon. People keep pretending that the welfare of the bad guy is the priority....when it isn't.

It was a sad day, but at least the bad guy lost and no one else was hurt.

Yeah the bad guy is under suspension with pay.

 

[Adjei]

But that is a distinct risk in such volatile situations. I find avoiding being killed by police a rather easy task.



No...the bad guy is going into the ground. Whether or not cops used the best judgement or followed proper protocols or not doesn't make them the bad guy.

The truth is, there are some people the world is better off without. One less knife-weilding nutjob with a death wish riding a streetcar I take regularly.

Look you are a focking idiot. It's people like you who make the world so messed up. You act all high and mighty as if you are some saint. You don't even know the young man but because of one incident, you want to disrespect the dead. Pray that something like this doesn't happen to you or anyone you know.

 

[Marko]

Clearly the kid in question was on drugs, and quite possibly involved with the drug biz based on his tweets & handle:
https://twitter.com/sammypusha

There's more...

23 July he tweets

What's wrong wid deze niggaz inever back down

6 June he tweets

ur alive 2day simply because idon't wanna go 2 prison but payback is gonna b a bitch #ipromise

Clearly no angel - he was causing problems on the streetcar and provoked police - but he should still be alive to face the consequences of his actions.

 

[freshcutgrass]

Not being an innocent victim doesn't equate to the rightness of individual being killed.

I never said the "right" thing to do was kill him. I said armed standoffs with police runs a high risk of someone getting injured or killed. Who's to blame for the situation...the police or Sammy?

We got tasers for a reason - and it certainly wasn't for zapping them after being shot.

Hitting him in the streetcar with a taser from where the police were located looks to be rather unlikely. In a life and death situation with a crazy armed person, do want to be pointing a taser...or a gun at them?

yea...exactly. Me too.